


Lighting Fires

by doomedship



Category: Sanditon (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-14 00:00:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21006338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomedship/pseuds/doomedship
Summary: A moment of quiet clarity, after the events of Georgiana's kidnap.





	Lighting Fires

**Author's Note:**

> Set post episode 6, where Eliza does not return to the picture.

She walks in on him unexpectedly in the parlour, expecting no-one as Tom and Mary are out calling upon Lady Denham, while she has chosen to remain behind with the mounting pile of invoices Tom can never quite keep on top of. Truth be known, it’s a useful distraction from Georgiana’s troubles, and she likes the challenge. Her mind is full of ingoings and outgoings and she scarcely pays attention as she lets herself in, footsteps carelessly loud on the stone tiles.

"Miss Heywood," he says, in that oh-so-familiar, rich and subtle tone of ironic surprise as she enters with her nose buried in the papers. She almost drops the lot.

"Mr Parker," she exclaims. "I did not think anyone was home."

"No, nor I," he says, lowering his newspaper further. He's got a fire going and the warm glow casts light and shadows over his face.

"Well, please, don't let me disturb you," she says hastily, and backs towards the door. She knows by now how he dislikes their all too frequent unplanned encounters, and since their return from London she has hardly known how to look at him. The more she's thought about it all, the more awkward she feels about the things they saw of each other, the insight into the lives they've each led. Or, in her case, not led, for she has never felt more immature and fanciful than when she is in his presence.

But to her surprise, he only smiles.

"No, don't let me drive you away," he says, and gestured at the seat across from him at the small table, usually used for playing cards. "By all means come and do whatever it is you intended. I'll not get in your way."

"I was more concerned it would be the other way round," she says carefully. But she walks over as steadily as she can, trying for nonchalance as she lays her papers on the table. She doubts she's pulled it off, as it’s a small table, and the distance between them is barely two feet.

He looks across at her contemplatively, seemingly unconcerned by the closeness. "By now, I am quite accustomed to your relentless interference in my life, Miss Heywood. I think I'd now be quite lost if you were _not_ to turn up unexpectedly at every turn," he says, and Charlotte is relieved to see the gleam of amusement in his eyes. She is not at all keen to return to the humiliating early days of their relationship.

Perhaps he only sees her as Tom's amusing provincial pet, but she thinks that's better than the utter contempt she knows he held for her in the beginning.

She ignores the tiny voice in her head that wishes he would see her as much more.

"What is it you're working on?" he asks, and Charlotte looks at him warily but he seems quite genuine, regarding her over the same page of newspaper he's been on since she walked in.

"Just some of Tom's accounts. I'm afraid he's not fond of them, and rather leaves them to accumulate."

"Yes, that sounds like him," he remarks with a wry half-smile. "He is rather lucky to have chanced upon such an assistant as you."

She can't work out if he's mocking her, humouring her at best. She's only a girl from the unknown village; she will not make Tom a millionaire.

"I do what I can," she says, keeping her eyes on the page though she can feel him watching her like a physical pressure.

"Tell me, why is it you seem to be so on edge, Miss Heywood?" he asks rather crisply, though she knows by now that that tense tone reflects more on his own uncertainty than on her. She finally meets his eye and sighs.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I don't mean to be. Only, I suppose whenever I see you I... I end up thinking about London."

He frowns at that, and sets down the paper altogether so he can lean forwards onto the table.

"You mean that you are troubled by what happened last week? It would not be surprising, considering what you experienced there. I'm sorry I haven't asked after your wellbeing sooner, I should have-"

"No, it's not that, I’m quite well," she says quickly. She doesn't want him to think that she's some delicate flower who takes one look at the more unsavoury side of life and faints. In any case, the truth is she really isn’t particularly troubled by the danger she encountered in any meaningful way.

He looks at her questioningly.

"I suppose you must think me terribly naive," she begins, and smiles humourlessly. "Well, you have called me such already to my face, so I know it to be true," she says. "And I do not blame you. Having to come to my rescue, and my _shock_ at everything I saw in the streets and at Mr Beecroft's property must make me dreadfully immature to you."

Her face feels too warm, embarrassment blooming as she looks and him but he only sits and studies inscrutably, always so inscrutable.

"This is what has been troubling you? That I might think you lacking in worldly experience?" he says, and leans his forearms on the table as he frowns deeply, regarding her with an expression of bafflement and - perhaps she's being fanciful - but she thinks she sees concern.

"I suppose."

"Charlotte, that-" he catches himself, looks surprised, as if he doesn't know where such forwardness with her name came from either. She suppresses a smile.

"I don't mind," she says, a little bashfully. "We have raced halfway to Scotland together after all. Perhaps that deserves some familiarity."

He laughs quietly. "Charlotte, then."

It feels intimate and leaves her heart racing more than she'd ever admit to.

"I do not think you naive," he says. "If you are unfamiliar with things, it is only because you have not yet had the chance to experience them, which is not a fault at all. And of the things we saw in London, I don't think I recall a single aspect which I would be happy to think you _had_ experienced previously."

She gives a small smile. He is clearly in the mood to be charitable to her, but she is under no illusions.

"You are a man who has travelled the world, sir," she says quietly. "You have made your fortune and you've known the streets of London, both the finest ones and the most unsavoury of them. You’ve no need to pretend that I am not sorely lacking by comparison."

He is quiet for long moments, and she thinks he's probably trying to work out how to politely avoid the obvious conclusion.

"How much you presume of me," he says quietly. "And how critical you are of yourself. Yet in truth, you couldn't be further from the truth. I can only _admire_ the openness and the appreciation with which you regard the world. Would that I could go back to a time where I too were not so jaded. The things that I have seen and done are not admirable, Charlotte. Why would I ever judge you for knowing nothing of them?"

"You speak of the boarding house?" she says, and he winces. She doesn't know the details of what transpires in such a place but she knows enough that the thought of him, the man she _thinks_ she knows, being part of it makes her distinctly uneasy.

And he seems to feel the same, as he can barely look up from the table.

"Amongst other things," he says raggedly. "Yes."

He flicks his eyes up at last as if he can't bear not to see what expression is on her face in that moment. She can't ever seem to hide what she's feeling from him, so she supposes it's as good a way as any for him to know her thoughts.

She wonders what exactly he's looking for this time.

"Charlotte, I-" he breaks off, tries again. "It has been much on my mind too. I despise that I caused you to set foot in a place such as that. You should never have borne witness to the things that occur in there. And I am more ashamed than you can ever know that I am a man whose name is known in such places. Even moreso that you should discover that to be the case."

He takes a deep breath, seems to gather courage.

"I was a different man, some years ago," he says. "I... suffered a loss that led me to a very dark path. It is no excuse, but it is the only explanation I have for my behaviour in that time, which was intolerable."

"Mary... she spoke of a broken engagement?"

She wonders if this is the truth of it. That the impenetrable Sidney Parker not so much unfeeling, but rather a man driven to torment by a broken heart.

"Yes," he says. Frowns at a memory only he can see. "Eliza. I... loved her very deeply. We were young, and about to be married, but she passed me over at the last moment for a much older, wealthier man. It was- it seemed like there could be nothing left to live for after that. So I did my damnedest to make sure I did live for nothing.”

Her lips part, her heart constricting unexpectedly to think not only how it must have tortured him then, but also what she knows it must be costing him now to confess this to her. He is a man who takes such pains to hide his feelings, and yet here he is baring his very soul. She swallows hard.

"Mr Parker, I-"

"If you will allow me such familiarity as to call you by your name, I beg that you would do the same," he says.

"I do not think Charlotte would suit you so well," she replies instantly, before she can think about the wisdom of making such a joke in such a heavy moment.

There is a moment where she thinks she’s blown it, yet in the next heartbeat he lets out a laugh, both delighted and surprised, and she breathes again.

"Sidney, then," she says carefully. "I'm sorry you were treated so. I could not imagine… from what little I know of love, I can't imagine loving someone enough to promise marriage only to choose another for reasons of material wealth," she says, her brow creasing as she tries to piece together what are to her entirely conflicting notions. Try as she might, she cannot imagine a scenario where she would pursue money so coldly.

"Yes," he says pensively. "Indeed, one might draw the conclusion that she did not in fact truly love me."

She wants to reach across the table, take his hand, tell him he deserves better and it wasn’t his fault. Because despite their many misunderstandings, she knows now that he is a man who is loyal and brave, and underneath that aloof facade he is warm and kind and capable of loving so deeply as to utterly lose his way over the loss of that love.

But she is bound by the rules of the world they live in, so she can only sit and hope he sees what she means to tell him in the look in her eyes as she stares back at him.

"And indeed, now, though I am long since past any feelings I had, with all I have in my past, I don't expect any woman to believe me suited to matrimony," he adds. She cannot hide her look of surprise.

"A mistake in your past is hardly reason to condemn yourself for all eternity," she says. "If I am not mistaken, there are many husbands out there who have committed _far_ greater indiscretions that any you have revealed to me. And having seen the kindness and compassion which you showed to Georgiana and Mr Molyneux and your brother… and to me, I believe any woman who became your wife would consider herself extremely fortunate indeed."

He's surprised by her vehemence, and perhaps by her words speaking so openly about a matter that lies so close to her deepest feelings, but she resists the embarrassment as best she can. It's only the truth, and she's never been shy of speaking her mind before.

Of course, she's never made passionate arguments as to the marriageability of a man before.

She's also never felt like this about a man before.

"Charlotte..." he says. "I have been in such distress considering what you must think of me, when your good opinion has come to mean everything to me. But to hear you say that leads me to hope that you might yet forgive my many shortcomings, and see a place for me in your life, and your future."

"I have long since seen both of those things,” she admits quietly. “I cannot claim to know much of love, as you well know, but when I am with you, I find that I learn a little more.”

He looks at her as if she has just hung the moon.

Slowly, he moves his hand across the table, stopping just before he reaches hers, and she hesitates only a moment before she closes the remainder of the distance and lets her bare skin touch his. Their fingers entwine like long-lost lovers.

It feels a bit like brushing a flame.

She will gladly catch fire with him.


End file.
